


The One That Happened After The Hug

by abaddon (nothingbutfic)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: DH-compliant, M/M, book-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 11:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12506488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutfic/pseuds/abaddon
Summary: Boys will always be boys. [A fic set during Chapters 29 and 30 of Deadly Hallows.]





	The One That Happened After The Hug

**Author's Note:**

> Many hands made this light work: kaalee, kevin, oconel, and florahart. Set in the middle of Book Seven, so it's spoiler-y and 'shippy.

  
_It was Luna and Dean. Seamus gave a great roar of delight and ran to greet his best friend._

*

After the roar, the hug.

“…Shame-”

“Dean!” Seamus cried joyfully, and cradled him all the tighter.

“Yeah, I’m glad to see you too.” Dean paused. “Shame-”

“What?”

“You’ve got your hand on my arse.”

“Maybe I’m tryin’ to give you gay germs.”

“You know, after all the effort I went getting rid of Ginny’s cooties, I’d like not to pick up a new set. Besides, it’s not manly.”

“Aw, shut up,” Seamus tsked. “Not like you manly quidditch players pat each other’s arses after a game.”

“Yeah, but we all know we’re straight.”

Stubbornly, Seamus held on. Awkwardly, Dean put his arms around the smaller Gryffindor, and hugged him close. Before stiffening, suddenly, and stepped back to sweep them apart.

“You _groped_ me,” he grumbled, admonishing Seamus with a glare. “I told you about groping last year – that’s a no-go area.”

“You know, you look all duskily handsome when you get broodingly intense like that.”

“I’m a regular Mr. Darcy, right. You’re just trying to get a reaction.”

“Who else am I going to get a reaction out of?”

Dean snorted. “…It’s amazing, but I have missed you. For some reason that obviously escapes me right now.”

Seamus just grinned triumphantly in response. Concerned, Dean leaned forward to brush his knuckles down Seamus’ jaw; he winced at the touch, but barely moved away. “You look well clobbered, Shame,” he observed, softly.

“It’s better than it looks. Dark magic, so it can only heal naturally.” Seamus wrinkled his nose and stepped back, out of reach, shrugging away any concern. Both men liked to stand on their own two feet; even friends could only come so close.

“So,” Dean said.

“So,” Seamus replied.

The words hung in the air for a moment, before Seamus burst into hyperactivity yet again. “So!” he cried out, launching himself into babble. “Tell me everythin’! Well, not everythin’, obviously, that’d be well dull, but the important bits. You know,” he glanced over at the others who’d arrived with Dean, gathered as they were around Neville, a few feet away. They may have been on another planet for all the attention they gave Seamus and Dean. “-Anythin’ particularly excitin’ happen.”

“Like what?” Dean asked, flatly, and suspious.

“Well, you travelled with Luna. Bet you tried to pull.”

Dean cleared his throat at that, and straightened up; some things could not be denied, especially to another bloke. Women were, of course, a different matter entirely: he’d never say this to Hermione. “Well, considering the short duration of our contact-” he began, and then ‘oofed’ as his rather pontificating train of words vanished with Seamus elbowing him in the gut.

“You so did,” Seamus remarked, grinning in a way that was somehow approving and way too sly for Dean's liking.

“…It should not be possible for someone with a face that puffy to look that sly,” Dean declared, looming down over him.

Seamus, as per usual, just held his ground and tipped his face up. “Ah, but many things are possible when you’re as talented as I. Go on,” he prompted. “You were talkin’ about stickin’ it to Luna.”

“I did not try to ‘stick it’ to Luna. I simply suggested that considering a time of war, and the need for human companionship and comfort in these difficult, trying times that we might…you know…”

“Give each other a good, hard rogering,” Seamus supplied.

“Bit more meaningful than that, Shame,” Dean said, sounding hurt. “You know, girls like it to sound....” 

"Special?" 

"Yeah, that."

“You just wanted to get your end away.”

“Did I ever.”

They both laughed.

“What about you, then, o swollen face?” Dean enquired, just a tad bitchy.

“Whaddya mean, what about me?”

“Did you pull?”

Seamus blinked. “Who could I have pulled?”

“Neville,” Dean shrugged.

“Neville?!” Seamus blushed.

“Don’t tell me you don’t like him. The way you look at him to take the lead, the way you lean into him, the way you check out his arse when you think he’s not looking-”

“Shut up,” Seamus fumed. “And it’s a nicer arse than yours, so there.”

Dean stuck his tongue out at that.

“We don’t talk about who I like, okay? If we do than that’s the kiss of death on things.”

“Like that Ravenclaw bloke-“ Dean began, oh so innocently.

“Not _talkin’_ about it!” Seamus hissed at him, standing on tip-toes.

“Or that time with Smith,” chimed in Dean, right on top of his protests.

Seamus went scarlet. “ _Not talkin’_ about it!” he exclaimed, again, and held his hands over his ears like he could make the words go away. “What part of 'shut up' don't you understand? The 'shut' or the 'up'?”

“Or even that incident with-“

“-I am _so_ never talking to you again, Dean Thomas, and shall punish you harshly until you die a horrible, horrible death.” It was all barely above a whisper, Seamus leaning close, voice spitting with a soft, implacable venom, and they were almost close enough to kiss.

“...Luna said I might give her nargles when I suggested it,” Dean admitted after a long, strained pause, and finished with a vulnerable ‘what can you do?’ shrug. Seamus’ passion faded away, and he rocked back onto the soles of his feet, no longer straining for height or advantage.

“…I think Neville’s straight,” he replied, with that same vulnerable despondency in his tone.

Together, they shared a sigh, and ended up leaning against each other for moral and manly support.

“So,” Dean began, “want to show off this army of yours?”

Seamus’ puffy face creased into a grin. “You just want me to tell you if the Patil twins’d be up for some wartime comfort.”

“Preferably both at once,” Dean nodded, with just a bit of a shrug.

“C’mon on, hero,” Seamus teased, and they wheeled around to face the gathered throng, most of which were still pointedly gawking at Harry, Ron and Hermione. “Let’s go introduce you to the adorin’ crowd.”

“…Shame,” Dean started, caution clear in his voice.

“Yeah, o studly wonder amongst all men and seducer of all women that you survey?”

“You’ve got your hand on my arse again.”

“Don’t worry,” Seamus’ grin was palpable through his words. “Girls always want to turn the gay bloke. See how Padma’s smilin’ at us?”

“I hate you.”

“Punish you harshly,” Seamus reminded him, sounding far too cheery to be doing any real good, and they both smiled so hard back at Padma that their teeth ached.

For that, Dean reflected, he wouldn’t tell Seamus that Neville was actually not straight at all: at least until tomorrow, anyway.

Later, Seamus shuffled over to him with a wondrous look on his face. Dean was standing next to the wall of the Room of Requirement, foot up on a conveniently created step as he tied his shoes. He tried not to think about whether the wall was really a wall and the step really a step – the whole place gave him a bit of a headache. “…I discovered Neville’s not straight,” Seamus declared, blinking as if shaken.

“Oh?” Dean enquired, eyebrow raised, but he didn’t really want to know. Too busy retying his shoelaces, for one thing.

“I was talkin’ to him and he told me to be quiet for once and I told him to make me and uh, he did.”

“…Well, that was more than I ever needed to know.” Dean surmised, before adding: “We could all die today, Shame.”

“You’re just pissed you didn’t get a Patil twin.”

“Well, _course!_ ”

“Don’t worry. Think of how desperate they’ll get if we _are_ all about to die soon.”

“You are such a _fucking_ ray of sunshine, you know that, Shame?”

“Sure I do. I’d just like to remind you that I managed to pick up and you didn’t. And you knotted your shoelace instead of tying it properly.”

Dean swore and bent over to fix it.

“Eternal. Fucking. Punishment,” Seamus promised, eyes bright. “Might even tell ya how Neville kisses.”

Dean groaned.

“Hey, don’t get jealous cause my boyfriend’s more of a stud than you. Bet he can tie his own shoelaces, as well...”

It threatened to be a very long war.  



End file.
